Who is the most important politician for our industry this year? I’ll give you a clue — it’s not the Transport Secretary. As we enter 2025, all eyes in the coach and bus world should be on the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who sets out the results of her Comprehensive Spending Review in June.
The review will contain the most contentious set of decisions yet for the new Labour administration. It will set out departmental spending for the next three to five years, determining just how much money there is for local authorities, for the Department for Transport (DfT) and, in turn, for buses.
Unless you’ve been hibernating, you’ll be aware that government finances are tight — we are about to find out just how tight. And that has huge implications for Britain’s ability to grow, and sustain, good coach and bus services.
Passengers could be forgiven for thinking the Bus Services Bill, which came out in December, is the end of the process rather than the beginning. Politicians have made things sound seductively simple — a once-in-a-generation set of measures to transform bus services, thus improving living standards nationwide.
The Mirror’s Deputy Political Editor was impressed, declaring that the legislation would upend Thatcher-era privatisation and save our buses: “Essential bus services will be protected by law under Labour’s public transport revolution.”
And there’s much to chew over in the legislation. It calls for beefed-up driver training to enhance safety for women and girls who travel by bus. It seeks to require, at last, local authorities to consider how to protect socially necessary services.
It enables the creation of municipals — now referred to as Local Authority Bus Companies, or “LABCos”. And, of course, it allows local authorities to franchise buses.
On behalf of its members, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) is pushing hard to make this legislation as workable as possible. We will continue to point out, robustly when necessary, what works on the ground and what doesn’t, how best to run tenders effectively and what our members work 24/7 to deliver.
From the perspective of passengers, though, none of these reforms will be particularly meaningful unless they’re backed by hard cash — and politicians need to be aware of that.
You can paint buses a different colour and put different people in charge. However, unless there’s enough money not just to sustain existing services, but to build them, the promised bus-related boost in living standards won’t materialise.
Passengers could be forgiven for thinking the Bus Services Bill, which came out in December, is the end of the process rather than the beginning
We all know services have declined as public funding has been squeezed.
A recent study, Britain’s Buses in a New Era, by Chris Cheek, noted that restoring bus services to pre-COVID levels would cost £1.6 billion annually, plus at least £1.2 billion for new buses. To get services back to 2010 pre-austerity levels, the figures would be £2.7 billion per year, plus £3 billion in upfront capital.
So we’re not talking about small change, and we must help DfT fight its corner for the best possible settlement.
Also in the year ahead will be an integrated transport strategy, which is the government’s high-level “vision” for transport over the next decade.
CPT will be reminding ministers that buses, used by 11 million people daily, and coaches, which facilitate 450 million journeys a year, are central to any realistic vision.
And there will be revised local transport plans from councils up and down the country.
The challenge for our industry is to put coaches, as well as buses, at the centre of these. Coach passengers, after all, deliver £8.3 billion of spending in local economies, according to KPMG’s recent “value of coaches” work for CPT.
The new Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, has stopped short of her predecessor’s declaration that she was “obsessed with buses’’.
Nevertheless, all the signs are that she recognises the fundamental value of Britain’s favourite form of public transport.
It’s hard to remember a year with so much to play for. You can guarantee that CPT will be in the mix, making the case that every penny spent on buses and coaches is an investment in the future of our country.
